The New York Times

On April 12th 2017 they promoted a “controversial” story about the “Fearless Girl” statue on Wall Street and how it turned the sculptor of the Wall Street bull rather peevish.

It turned out to generate massive coverage and feedback from people all over the world.

Great, you might say?

Not so great, we say.

Why?

Because the “Fearless Girl” statue was commissioned by State Street Capitol Advisors – Who The New York Times took Big $ from for a Big Ad in their same day’s Business Section which just so happened to blare – get this – “Sometimes Shit Happens.”

Well, actually, the ad said – “Sometimes —– Happens.”

But why be coy when you’re in bed with The New York Times and promoting yourself by ludicrously tying your corporate profits onto the back of the Women’s Rights Movement?

Talk about shame.

Shame on The New York Times.

Shame on State Street Capitol Advisors.

Shame on all those who got suckered into this false “discussion” of “Fearless Girl” when the real issue is about two corporations making a tempest in a teapot in order to generate corporate profits.

As big corporate sponsors such as Mercedes Benz and Allstate withdrew their advertising money from Fox’s Bill O’Reilly’s TV program based on multiple lawsuits where he settled sexual harassment claims, the Indianapolis based corporation Angie’s List has decided to Stand By Its Sexually Harassing Man O’Reilly.

Cheryl Reed, spokeswoman for Angie’s List, as quoted in The New York Times said, “Just as we trust members to make their own hiring decisions, we trust them to make their own media consumption decisions.”

Really?

By Angie’s List’s own logic, then…if a corporation such as Angie’s List CHOOSES to sponsor a PROVEN CORRUPTOR such as Bill O’Reilly, then consumers should CHOOSE NOT TO USE that corporation – ANGIE’S LIST.

Thanks for giving us that option, Angie!

Cause when Bill O’Reilly comes after you or your daughters or your friends or anyone you know, he’ll be smiling that creepy smile knowing YOU’VE got his back.

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Angie’s List has proudly touted their Indianapolis, Indiana headquarters location, knowing they are in the heart of Mike Pence territory where religious-backed Right-Wing politics rule the land and women’s rights are held in such low esteem that Governor Pence made it his policy never to sit down at a table with a single woman, fearing the supposed backhand of God swatting him across his dirty little mind.

If you think a dog being abused is bad, how about a helicopter decapitating 2 actors and crushing a third? Two of them were child actors. The scene was being directed by John Landis but was under the supervision of producer Steven Speilberg.

1. ESPN is owned by The Walt Disney Company, a corporation that rakes in $52 Billion dollars every year and is only interested in making many more billions of dollars.

2. ESPN makes a habit of promoting the most powerful sports’ interests.

The latest example would be their blatant Duke/Louisville basketball commercials where they make a hero out of Duke’s creepy, cheating Grayson Allen. Does it matter to ESPN that Allen has been repeatedly kicking hitting opponents and is despised by most Americans who value sportsmanship?

No. ESPN wants to make this creep a hero.

3. The number one mantra of every good American should be: “Question Authority.” ESPN will never question authority because they are invested in the status quo.

See a bad call on the football field or on the ball court? ESPN announcers rarely question referees’ or officials’ calls. Questioning authority upsets the status quo. Even though all of America sees what is unfair, ESPN people are blind.

4. ESPN lies by omission.

Before Alabama woefully lost to Clemson in the national championship game, ESPN already crowned Alabama the champ, reporting countless stories and video feeds promoting the invulnerability of the Alabama football team.

Whoops!

Then after Clemson kicked Alabama’s butt in the championship game ESPN practically ignored the results and ignored Clemson’s victory.

Why?

Because ESPN owns the SEC Network where Alabama plays. It is in ESPN’s financial interest to promote Alabama.

Clemson? ESPN won’t make money off Clemson. So they ignore them.

Everyone’s up on fake news. How about “fake non-news?”

5. These “Takeaway” things are just plain silly so make up your own for this last one…

PS: Dan Dakich and Kirk Herbstreit are the 2 exceptions at ESPN: They are both very good at what they do.

Everyone declared Alabama the National Champion of College Football before the game was even played Monday night.

Someone forgot to tell Clemson. They kicked Alabama’s butt 35-31 and left all the football pundits looking like the political geniuses who had Hillary Clinton as president.

It’s always sweet when the nation knows what’s going to happen while the national media does nothing but scream the opposite.

All season long the pundits have piled on about Alabama being the best football team. Yet Americans who watch the game knew that was far from true.

The laughable ESPN has for weeks planted headline-worthy stories crowning Alabama as champions; How many Americans know ESPN runs the SEC Network that ‘Bama represents? It is in ESPN’s financial interest to push ‘Bama as national champion, and that was what they did with all their sloppy journalistic might.

The New York Times had innumerable articles fronting ‘Bama as the leading team of America.

It must be remembered that Hollywood is a world unto itself – a hubbub of a bubble; the ultimate echo chamber.

And this year the cries bouncing off that bubble and echoing around in that chamber is that Damien Chazelle’s “La La Land” is the musical masterpiece of the year.

We beg to differ.

After a recent viewing of “La La Land” with an average audience – not an “industry” audience, mind you – the crowd upon exiting was left muttering “what were all those critics talking about?”

What we saw was a mumbling, disjointed mish-mash with not one memorable song or performance. Ryan Gosling did his best with the material he was given but playing against Emma Stone he might as well have been hitting tennis balls against a brick wall. Stone’s acting goes from A to Z with nothing in between. No shading. We get the tearing, blurting bits that we saw so well in, well, “Birdman,” for example. And she keeps throwing that back at us.

As musicals go, this one didn’t. Go.

From the opening sequence, once the actors open their mouths to sing the words got lost and we knew we were in the hands of a second-rate director. The composition within the frame was crowded and without perspective, not unlike a smartphone user who’s never sure where the action is so they just point where the movement goes. Cinematography is an art. A cinematographer has a grand vision that encompasses light, composition, movement, depth, color all in a complex language that conveys a dramatic purpose to a film.

In “La La Land” the cinematography was non-existent.

And don’t give any credence to those critics who cite the beauty of the “shots” such as Griffith Park. A camera held still and rolling “film” on an object is not cinematography.

Most of the scenes in “La La Land” were so underlit that Stone and Gosling’s faces were in shadow. And when they are supposed to be singing, audiences want to SEE the mouths of the actors.

Dramatic tension. As in Chazelle’s “Whiplash” this film has a tacked-on, fake dramatic turning point that comes out of nowhere and appears in one scene at a dining table. Coming from left field, audiences are blind-sided. “Well, guess we’re going in that direction.”

Chazelle is still an immature filmmaker. Here he’s not unlike a trolley car driver who’s got his passengers on a trip then decides to jump the track. Passengers – except for gullible Hollywood-ites – don’t enjoy bumpy rides.

The most egregious example of a director who is clueless over what to do with a musical bit is Stone’s little audition song toward the end. It’s meant to be powerful yet, Chazelle has Stone frozen in place, not moving a muscle, under a hard spot, for the entire song. We’ve never seen someone sing a song as if they were standing in front of a firing squad, but this bit would surely qualify.

The film’s ending is an example of what happens when you give a director final cut. They always find a way to make it longer and confusing and waste any goodwill they might have garnered from the audience up until that point.

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There’s more. Much, much more.

And we’ll write about that when we find the time.

At this point we’ll remind everyone to rush out and see Hollywood’s fav flick from last year – “The Revenant.”

Oh, you don’t want to waste your time on that boring slogfest, either.